Ohio Small Claims - Breach of Sale Agreement

[Nate Richards]

Hello Everybody, 

I need some recommendations on this scenario;

Recently purchased a 3 unit, fully rented property, and received 1 of 3 deposits. This is a D property in a B+ area so some abnormalities were not unexpected, but this is different. The closing disclosures stated there was only 1 of 3 deposits, which was questioned at closing and the seller's agent "confirmed" was correct prior to signing. When introducing myself (landlord/property manager) and the owner (my wife) to the tenants and informing them there were no deposits on file for the existing leases they both produced a lease agreement indicating deposits along with the previous owners signature. When our agent contacted the seller he said "sue me, take me to small claims court", arguing the tenant leases were fake, but refusing to supply his matching lease pages. 

Additionally, the landlord had one tenant living without electric to half his unit (kitchen half) for a week prior to closing. IMO This repair would be an exception to the "AS-IS" clause as it was functional during all visits and was disclosed to the prior owner with enough time to repair prior to closing. Same as a seller can't break all the windows day before closing and claim the sale is "as-is."

My question is as follows; 

Since my wife is the owner is there a way to recoup the cost of my (property management) time as eligible for reimbursement? I have 6-8 hours in multiple contacts over the last 2 weeks obtaining documentation and requesting these funds be supplied. Ohio does not allow for a plaintiff to recoup costs of preparing the claim or lost work time related to filing, but what about the cost of property management? Does she have to subpoena me as a witness or am I actually a plaintiff via marriage? Our other properties are held in my name only, so she would technically have zero history for fees. My W-2 rate is higher than hers, and my hourly income exclusively related to RE is about 6X my hourly W-2 rate. Are we reasonably allowed to seek the RE rate or only her W2 rate? The deposits and repair are a meager $1200, but total claim would be as high as $3500-$4000 if applying my RE rate for our least profitable property, and over the $6k limit if using an average rate of all properties.

I expect the base deposits to be a slam dunk win, with issues during collection probably requiring wage garnishment from 1 spouse. I'd love some input from anyone with past experience on a similar transaction.

TIA!